Conferences are popular ways to connect your healthcare organization’s internal intelligence to the external intelligence that conference speakers, exhibitors, and attendees offer. Educational sessions, keynote addresses, pre-conference events, and a myriad of opportunities to meet with conference speakers, exhibitors, and attendees in both structured and informal settings are very powerful ways to gather the information you need to make smart decisions. But healthcare conferences can have thousands, even tens of thousands of attendees and hundreds of exhibitors. How can you efficiently sort through so many potential opportunities? It’s important to not let the sheer size of these events overwhelm your ability to realize the value they present. Speed-dating vendors at healthcare conferences is one potentially useful approach to conquering the conference crowd.

Being able to easily meet and interact with exhibitors, engaging with a variety of 3rd parties about the opportunities, challenges and issues your company is facing, and the ability to quickly obtain key information to help you assess whether a specific vendor's offerings and company culture align with your needs are three main reasons why people attend healthcare conferences.

Health:Further, an open community of healthcare entrepreneurs and innovators, announced today that it has entered into a technology partnership with Lucro, a digital platform that helps healthcare organizations make better purchasing decisions, for its annual Health:Further Festival at the Music City Center in Nashville, TN on August 22 – 25, 2017.

The Health:Further Festival is an annual gathering which brings together over 2,000 of the brightest minds in healthcare innovation, including startup companies and health systems, focused on improving the industry and building a healthier, more sustainable future.

Who’s ready for HIMSS17 in t-minus two days!? In preparation for the show, we sat down with Bruce Brandes, Lucro CEO and co-founder, to hear his thoughts on emerging trends in hospital purchasing and ask what innovation progress he expects – and hopes – to see at the industry’s largest annual gathering.